I had a very disturbing and out of character dream the other night. I’ve been sitting on it since trying to work out what it meant, and somewhat afraid of finding out. Anyway, this is it.
There are two teams of people, and I’m the leader of one. We’re both a loose conglomeration of people, adults, children, people from all walks of life competing over something much smaller than a sheep station. I go into the competition expecting us to win. It might be my natural confidence, or it might be that I think that we have a natural advantage. In any case I’m feeling pretty cosy with the whole thing.
It is a shock then when we fall behind in this unspecified competition. We fall behind so badly that it becomes very clear that regardless what we do the cause is lost. There is some minor celebration of this on the other side, and some angst on my side. For me it is cause for some unexpected soul-searching, which even more surprising tips over into an act of stupid violence.
We share a communal fridge it seems, and in the door of the fridge is a glass bottle belonging to a young girl on the other side. On wild impulse I smash the bottle and walk away. At first nobody knows who smashed the bottle, and then they begin to point fingers at me and mutter, looking at me with an expression of surprised contempt.
I am feeling miserable, and more remorseful than I can explain. At the same time there is a sense of bewilderment. Did I really do that? How could I have done that? In the face of their accusations I don’t deny it, but find myself wanting to make an excuse, to explain that it was an accident when I knew it wasn’t. To my credit I don’t, but when another child, a boy of about 10, comes to taunt me over it I snap again. This time I lash out at him making him cry. He is whisked away by adults. Everyone, including my own team, look upon me with disgust, and the boy’s father quite rightly has a go at me.I am astounded, embarrassed, ashamed. I can’t understand anything. This is not what I am, this is not what I do...and yet here I am, guilty as charged. How can this be I wonder desperately. I am dignified, measured, I don’t get emotional, I don’t take things to heart, I don’t lose control. But now. I’m in the centre of this storm, despised even by my own team and unable to blame them, the pathetic character who takes his frustrations out on children.
I try to apologise but no-one wants anything of it. I’ve lost it I think. I’ve lost.I woke with this dream in me. It was Tuesday morning in Sydney. As I got myself ready for work and packed up my things I wondered what I was doing here. How did I end up here? In those moments I believed I had taken the wrong turn. I was living the wrong life.
Did I feel that because of the dream? Or was the dream the reflection of some deep-seated frustration? A warning perhaps? Or is it nothing at all? In the days since I can’t disavow the dream, but I can reject the content of it as being foreign to who I am and what I believe.
